Our Electoral System is supposed to be open and transparent and accurate. Our democracy is worth fighting for and, if you believe the politicians in D.C., worth sending our troops to fight and die in order to spread around the world. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) amongst other things, is supposed to help disabled voters vote in private and on their own. All of these things, I believe Arizona's Secretary of State, Jan Brewer would probably agree with. And yet, she seems to have a very different belief about how to ensure the integrity of our democracy at home and how disabled voters should be treated.

Therefore, I am inviting her to a public debate on the matter. I will travel to Arizona on a date of her choosing to accommodate her schedule. Tickets can be sold to the events, and all proceeds will go towards supporting our troops from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars for a charity which builds accessible housing for the most severely disabled of them. More on that below.

Lawrence, and the entire station, are very rightwing. Nonetheless, to his credit, Lawrence is very concerned about the non-partisan crisis in our 2006 Electoral System vis a vis the proliferation of Electronic Voting Machines in the wake of the HAVA. This was my second time appearing on his show.

This time around, he attempted to invite his friend Jan Brewer to join us for a discussion on these important matters. Brewer has recently come under fire for her decision to bring Diebold systems into the state even after they were proven to be hackable in Leon County, Florida late last year. They were then confirmed to be even more unsecure than previously realized by an independent study [PDF] commissioned by CA Sec. of State Bruce McPherson (a big Diebold supporter himself) after the security vulnerability was discovered in Leon County.

Lawrence said during the show that he had personally discussed some of these matters with her at a speech not long ago and learned that, apparently, she's no fan of The BRAD BLOG. As Lawrence reported during the show...

I went to a speech Jan Brewer made, and brought up the question of these machines and Diebold. And Jan --- who I've known for years and love dearly --- was almost angry about you, Brad. About BRAD BLOG, about the attacks on Diebold Electronic Voting..."

Of course, Brewer, despite many previous appearances on Lawrence's show, turned down the invitation to show up and discuss the matters along with me. She did, however, send a spokesperson instead who agreed to appear only if he would be allowed to do so without being questioned by me.

So at the bottom of the hour, after I'd been on for the first part by myself with Lawrence, SoS spokesman/attorney --- and, I've since learned, State Elections Director --- Joe Kanefield came on for a few minutes while I was made to sit on hold. Kanefield to tell several untruths to Lawrence and his listeners, to suggest that I have been "spinning" these issues, and then he scrammed before I was allowed to come back on the air to question or challenge his assertions "face to face."

During his drive-by appearance, Kanefield said that he's "absolutely confident" that Arizona's untested voting systems are "rock solid". But for an idea of just some of the misinformation and untruths that he gave to Lawrence and his listeners (while I was unable to respond) consider this exchange concerning the Leon County hack, and the statement The BRAD BLOG was able to receive from the Leon County Election Director, Ion Sancho himself, in response to it...

KANEFIELD: ...We are absolutely confident our voting equipment is safe, secure and accurate. And is certainly not subject to these security vulnerabilities that people like your guest, Brad, just throw out there all the time. It's terribly unfortunate. But our systems are rock solid.

LAWRENCE: Is Diebold any problem? They're supposedly a problem in other states. Why are you so certain that they are not a problem here?

KANEFIELD: Well, ya know, I've heard these allegations from time to time and, you know, we get the same media reports that everyone else does and we always follow up. And ya know, half the time...or most of the time, these reports turn out not to be how they're spun. For example, Brad talked about this, uh, this, this...report out of Florida, where Leon County...the election system was supposedly hacked and, uh, Diebold equipment was found to have, ya know, security vulnerabilities. Well we looked into that, ya know. We talked to both the company, we looked into the reports, and other election officials and we found out that, ya know, if look at what happened in Leon County...What happened was the election director there, gave these people unfettered access to this equipment. Gave these people his password. Opened the door, the back door to the voting equipment. Let them plug their computers in. Ya know, gave these computer scientists the ability to hack into the system. Now ya know, that's akin to giving someone the keys to your car, and opening it up and acting surprised when they take it away. It's not how an election is conducted.

Well, where to start? Most regular BRAD BLOG readers can probably already spot the misinformation in that exchange, but for a start, Sancho never gave anyone his passwords, nor did he "let them plug their computers in." Kanefield's account is just preposterous and complete misinformation.

But why trust me? As Kanefield says, "half the time...or most of the time, these reports turn out not to be how they're spun."

So The BRAD BLOG has, yet again, done what Kanefield and Brewer, apparently, couldn't be bothered to do...despite claiming to have "looked into the reports." We went to the source of those reports, Leon County Election Director, Ion Sancho.

Here's what Sancho wrote us in response to the comments from Kanefield quoted above:

I have never talked to Joe Kanefield, nor any election officials from Arizona. If they had contacted me they would have learned no one at the Leon County Supervisors of Elections Office provided passwords to the testers from Blackbox Voting (BBV) for any of our security tests. BBV technical knowledge of the Diebold OS [optical scan] system made the passwords unnecessary."

Finally, Mr. Kanefield's statement that the testers opened a back door to the voting equipment is accurate. The problem is, a back door to voting equipment is not a good thing. The election officials from California, who did contact me about these findings and prudently did their own analysis concluded this "back door" could allow someone with access to alter the outcome of a contest and not be detected, except for the paper ballots.

As the chief elections administrator for the citizens of Leon County I have the responsibility to find out the real world vulnerabilities of our voting system and act accordingly. I have done so.

Thanks Brad.

You're welcome, Ion! Thank you!

The "officials from California," whom Sancho speaks of, filed their own independent report [PDF] at the behest of CA SoS McPherson, on the Leon County hack by Finnish computer security expert Harri Hursti for BBV. They concluded in their report (amongst many other things, which Kanefield and Brewer apparently haven't bothered to read)...

Mr. Hursti's attack on the AV-OS [Diebold AccuVote optical-scan] is definitely real. He was indeed able to change the election results by doing nothing more than modifying the contents of a memory card. He needed no passwords, no cryptographic keys, and no access to any other part of the voting system, including the GEMS election management server.

It should also be noted that the memory card Hursti used for the attack was one purchased off the shelf for use in a crop scanner. It was reportedly obtained online for about $100.

Also for the record, Kanefield's metaphor of giving the keys away to the car is almost identical to the one frequently given by Diebold representatives to spin the hack. They tend to compare it to leaving the door open on a bank vault and acting surprised when the money is gone the next day, but clearly, them's the talking points old Joe was working from. It certainly wasn't from having actually informed himself.

Kanefield then went on to disinform listeners a few more times by telling them all votes in Arizona are "memorialized on a piece of paper" so if there is any machine malfunctions, they can always go back to that piece of paper. Never mind that the Leon County hack was also "memorialized" on paper, since it was done on the Diebold optical scan system which uses paper ballots. However, as the hack left no trace of itself, and certainly gave no signs of a machine malfunction, the only thing which would have alerted officials to a problem would have been a manual, hand-counted audit of those ballots. That is something which Brewer has avoided calling for despite a multi-partisan initiative (SB 1557) currently languishing in the Arizona legislature without Brewer's support.

He also misinformed listeners by telling them that the HAVA requires that every polling place have available a "machine" that allows disabled voters to vote independently and in secret.

It does not. Despite the Voting Machine Companies well-moneyed efforts to spread that hooey, HAVA only requires a disabled-accessible voting device in each polling place. Not a "machine". There are several non-electric, non-machine devices available that Arizona could have chosen to use.

As well, they could have chosen the AutoMark machine which, though electronic, at least creates a countable, voter-verifiable paper ballot for disabled voters, unlike the hackable and uncountable Diebold touch-screen systems which Brewer has chosen for most of the state. The AutoMark, preferred by many disabled voters --- who may be blind, but not stupid, to paraphrase one such voter I spoke with not long ago --- was only allowed for use in two or three of the smallest counties in the state, according to Arizona Election Integrity Advocate, John Brakey of AUDIT AZ.

Brakey also reports, incidentally, that Brewer set up a big demonstration of the AutoMark for disabled voters in the state capitol building, but she failed to put the Diebold touch-screen systems on similar display. We wonder why.

The sort of cowardice that this sort of thing --- the unwillingness to actually discuss these matters on air with someone like myself who won't allow these officials to get away with their misinformation --- really underscores how the AZ Secretary of State's office (and many others like it around the country) seem to feel they are not beholden to the citizens. They seem to forget entirely that they work for those citizens for whom they are elected or appointed to provide free, fair, accurate and transparent elections in which confidence can be had by all of the voters.

Instead, Brewer and others like her, seem to have sold their allegiance to the Voting Machine Companies.

It's bizarre. Why wouldn't these people want to talk to the voters? Why wouldn't they be concerned about them having confidence in elections and election equipment that they have been designated to select and oversee? If they have so much personal confidence in them, why are they so afraid to answers questions directly about them? If they have nothing to hide, and have real confidence in the way they are running elections, shouldn't they be more than willing to answer any and all questions about their equipment and elections?

One would think. And yet, so many of them do nothing but hide, obfuscate, lie, disinform, misinform and avoid any kind of scrutiny or questioning from concerned citizens. (For another example of an Arizona Election Official unable to appropriately answer questions from voters, see this video of Pima County Elections Director and President of the Election Officials of Arizona, Brad Nelson, going haywire in front of cameras after being questioned about Diebold touch-screen machines at a public meeting recently.)

Apparently Jan Brewer's office feels no responsibility and has no interest in answering to such concerns from her own voters. Election Integrity Advocates recently interrupted her re-election campaign announcement with protests against her decision to allow proven-hackable Diebold voting systems into the state. When asked about the incident by AP, who was there, she called the demonstrators "anarchists" and "conspiracy theorists" instead of speaking to their concerns. We reported on that AP story. Perhaps that's why she doesn't like us.

Anyway, since we have nothing to hide, and no particular dog in this hunt other than free and fair and accurate elections in which the citizenry can have confidence, we will make this public offer:

I will travel to Arizona, at a date of Brewer's choosing, to have a public debate about all of these matters and to take questions from any and all audience members in any format she likes. We can call it a "Debate for Democracy on the Homefront" and all proceeds from tickets sold to the event will go to Homes For Our Troops, a charity which builds accessible homes for the most severely disabled Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans.

We should be able to collectively raise thousands of dollars for the organization, and allow a healthy, public, transparent debate about all of these issues for the good of the country and the state of Arizona.

I have already asked Jay Lawrence if KTAR might be interested in sponsoring the event, but he didn't feel they would, saying that he didn't feel the station was interested at all in the topic. (Don't ask me why.) He's a conservative, and a friend of Brewer's, and so I'd be happy for him to moderate the debate either way if he wishes.

If any other radio station and/or newspaper in Phoenix, however, would like to help organize and publicize such an event, it would be most welcome. Perhaps the Phoenix New Times, who has been doing a bang up job reporting on many of these issues in Arizona, would be interested. Or maybe the folks at Air America Phoenix would like to help? (If you are from one of those organizations, or another similar, or able to contact them, please ask them about this, and let them know they may contact me here about it.)

Of course, Brewer herself would have to agree to show up, but certainly she supports our troops and wouldn't pass up the opportunity to raise thousands of dollars for the most disabled of them while at the same time being able to do her job of answering questions from the public and the media about Arizona's electoral system, right?

I even promise to be polite --- as I almost always am --- in the bargain. No anarchy here.

We don't receive any money from HAVA, nor from the Electronic Voting Machine companies. So please help us with gas money to get to Arizona, if Brewer will debate us, by making a donation to The BRAD BLOG! Thank you!

Right wing radio has no need for any honest debate, any more than right wing politicians do. Honest debate only serves to undermine their conscious misdeeds. Brewer won't debate you for the same reason Kanefield wouldn't. You have the facts. They have the facts also, and I'm sure are well aware of the problems with voting machines. But that's the way they want it. They have realized however, that they can't bullshit the American public indefinitely, and so their next recourse is to simply clam up.

With any luck, the AZ public listening to the Lawrence show will identify Kanefield's aversion to head-to-head debate for exactly what it is - cowardice. Cowardice sprung from a calculated strategy of public truth-avoidance.

Thank you so much, Brad, & kudos to you for sticking with this story! I hope SoS Brewer takes you up on your offer. She has nothing to fear from you or from a good, open debate on this CRUCIAL issue.
She has a golden opportunity here to show herself to be an honest and serious defender of AZ voters'--and of all Americans'--rights & concerns (or not).

Funny how Hursti got the memory card. That's about all they're used for these days: farming equipment and voting machines. He probably got it at around the same cost the government does too.

Make sure you bring up the enormous waste of money these things are when there's cheaper and more reliable alternatives, should you happen to debate her. I'm sure the citizens of her state won't take too kindly to that.

Not a chance these people will debate you Brad. I'm not even sure it's because they are so diabolical as we might think. I think it is because they don't really understand the machinery and have simply drank the Kool-Aid that spews from Diebold and the like. In addition, their "blind" trust in these machines cannot have been hurt by the fact that, for some reason, they always seem to help Republican candidates.....I suspect such appalling ignorance is true of many of the elected officials who are running our elections and making the decisions about how we vote. Many of them are simply political hacks (as opposed to voting machine "hacks") who are so technology challenged that understanding of electronic voting machines and all they entail is simply beyond their grasp. I strongly suspect this is the case with Brewer.

Actually, Kanefield's comment that Hursti/BBV "opened the door, the back door to the voting equipment. Let them plug their computers in" actually leaves me with the impression that he/they don't even understand the term "back door" as used in reference to "hacking" into a voting machine and that he actually thinks it can only mean literally opening the back of the machine and plugging something in. Is it possible that they are actually that ignorant? It would be laughable if it weren't so damn scary.

Steve #10 - i agree with your explanation of why some election officials are reluctant to publicly defend their reasons for using whatever electronic voting machines they use. And like them i am technically challenged. I read Bradblog every day but don't have time to absorb (or research) all the details concerning how electronic voting machines actually work or how they are hacked. So i wonder if you or Brad or anyone in here could explain - simply but informatively - HOW Hursti actually gained access to the memory card, and why did he use one off the shelf? Didn't the machine already have one in it? Did Hursti have access to the card before it was used in the test? Thanks to anyone who can help me out here!

Give 'em hell Bradblog!
Brad and all y'all bloggers!
Kudos to the right wing talk show guy for lettin' Brad on his show. Kudos to Brad for scaring the powers that be. Glad to know they're payin' a little attention...

Brad usually provides links to any primary sources or prior posts he refers to, as he did in this post when he referenced the Hursti hack in Leon County, Florida which took place last December. That link is in the 5th graph (or paragraph) of his post, above. You can go to that prior post by clicking on the words "proven to be hackable" that Brad provided as a link in that paragraph or you can click HERE where I have duplicated that link. When you go to that link, after reading it, you might want to click on the link (that Brad provides in that post) to the primary source at Black Box Voting for even more details of the Leon County Hursti hack (he has done other hacks as well). That clickable link is at the words "this stunning report" in the first paragraph of that post by Brad. To make it even easier to get to the original info at Black Box Voting I am duplicating the link to that HERE. Hope this helps you get up to snuff on what the "hack" Brad is referring to is all about.

I live in Tempe, but I don't know whether I'll be in Arizona for the election. Either way, I'd love to attend a public debate about Diebold and e-voting with the pusher who's responsible for ruining the integrity of Arizona polls.

I was watching (skipping through) Chris Mathews tonight and they were saying that the whole Valerie Plame thing was just about a bunch of people being stupid as opposed to diabolical, and that's why Fitzgerald doesn't know what to do.

Republicans forced us to buy stupid voting machines and don't want to admit it. Maybe we should back off so they don't get embarrassed.

Maybe it's a threat to our national security if we embarrass them. Maybe not.

DKD - See Steve's great comment for links to the primary reports on this. But to specifically answer your questions directly (and as simply) as I can...

explain - simply but informatively - HOW Hursti actually gained access to the memory card, and why did he use one off the shelf? Didn't the machine already have one in it? Did Hursti have access to the card before it was used in the test?

As I understand it, Hursti got his own card (I believe) off the Internet. The same type of card is used for a crop scanner. He then (I believe) put his code (which would print out specifically incorrect results when the correct ballots were run through the op-scanner) on that card.

That card was then used in the Mock Election Test.

The code on the card (I believe) "ate itself" when it was done, so a post-election test of the card wouldn't have shown the hack code.

In their attempt to keep this sort of hack from working, the California Analyists (mentioned and linked to in the article above) who looked into this hack made several recommendations. Amongst them:

Put serial numbers on the memory cards, so a fake one could not be used instead. "Lock" the cards into the machines once they are tested with a protective seal. etc.

Now I'm no hacker (anymore) but there are several ways to get around those safety recommendations and still pull off the hack from what I can tell. Setting aside the "protective seal" which has been shown to be easily removable, the machines are stored in poll workers houses the night before the election, so anything can be done to those machines and those cards.

Amongst some of the things that could be done, those cards can have any kind of info written to them in any number of ways that don't include removing the cards from the machines. They can be written to via a network, a modem, or even a keyboard can be attached (I believe) to the machines. You'd then be able to write to those cards as you can write to a floppy disk in your computer.

That's an *exceedingly* general description of the issue, but hopefully that's what you wanted.

As well, the Cal Report also says the analysts find 16 other bugs that were potentially much more dangerous than the vulnerability revealed by the Hursti Hack, however. They didn't describe those vulnerabilities, for the obvious reasons, in their public report.

So is it time to find the Democrat hackers and put them to work in November? Is that even a possibility in a computer world that supports Bush?
Hell, if we can find hackers who're good, why not have 'em put in Greens? And by, say, twice as many votes as there are registered voters in any precinct.
Wouldn't that make November fun?
That sounds like a recipe for either people demanding paper ballots, or the final Bush takeover, martial law because the Terrorists (!) have hacked our vote!

shw

COMMENT #20 [Permalink]...
ALL SEEING I
said on 5/3/2006 @ 9:52 am PT...

Brewer is a spineless coward. Her henchmen are cowards. Incidentally, this is what makes them desparate and dangerous.

I'm so tired of CHICKEN SH*TS!!!!!!

Its the gang mentallity. They have big balls when they can hide behind their staff (gang members) and shiny brass office door knobs. They hide under rocks like cockroaches when anyone tries to shine light on their grotesquely erroded ethics.

So I'm saying Brewer is a CHICKEN SH*T!!!!
.....
.....
Actually, she just might be a SH*T'N CHICK....now that the game is almost up.

So where did all the statesmen go.....All I see are politicians. In fact, they don't even bother trying to call themselves statesmen anymore:

Statesman:
one who exercises political leadership wisely and without narrow partisanship

Politician:
a : a person engaged in party politics as a profession
b : a person primarily interested in political office for selfish or other narrow usually short-sighted reasons

As a technically challenged member of the media audience I only need to hear that the official vouching for the reliability of the machines understands almost as little about how they work as I do. Knowing how to plug them in and switch them on does not constitute expertise.

It should be easier to communicate the fact that the that the official is full of shit than the technical details how the damn things can be rigged.

Local people rarely say to a local official (often a neighbor), you don't know what you are talking about. They will be more than happy to watch somebody else do it, particularly if said official has been la-de-dah-ing it up a bit.

I had to laugh at this story. I know Joe and Jan, and a couple of other people in their office.

In 2004 I discovered numerous illegal things they were doing to influence the presidential election as well as the smaller races.

Did you know in Arizona the SOS office can purposely send a candidate the wrong forms then refuse to stamp and certify their signatures and application because the candidate submitted the wrong forms? And legally they aren't liable. The state legislators worked in conjunction to create the most asinine statutes of any state --the Arizona Revised Statutes. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are so damn corrupt. Joe was a Democrat leaking confidential info to his cohorts outside the SOS office and Jan, a Republican, was doing the same with a guy name Sproul. Neither has an ounce of integrity.

Beyond they can legally get away with, they also did several illegal things for which I and several other citizens were going to file a suit against the SOS office in 04 but couldn't get the $$$ to get good legal counsel.

Having others finally see what a corrupt office that is and getting her name and Joe's out there is so redeeming because a lot of people I told in 04 and 05 thought it was bullshit. Now they are seeing more of the truth and believe me. This really is a nonpartisan issue because we have such corrupt officials in both parties we need to throw the bums out. At least this year the Democrats have some honest candidates running and in a couple of races the Republicans aren't too bad either.

I have documents and tape recordings that one day I might just pull out when they least expect it.

Jan and Joe, you better watch your step because eyes are on you and your corrupt crap is going to come back and bite you on your asses.

Oh, and be sure to email me with any SOS complaints.

COMMENT #24 [Permalink]...
Shake it up
said on 5/5/2006 @ 11:46 pm PT...

There are tons of Democratic hackers. All those unemployed ones in Silicon Valley who lost their jobs when the rethugs shipped their jobs to India.

We should take up a collection and offer a reward to anyone who hacks the systems in each state and throws the votes to the most obscure and least likely to win candidate.

That will get the attention of both parties who have had their head in the sand way too long.

I was talking to Howard Dean about these issues in 2003 already and it was like talking to a wall. 3 years later he still doesn't grasp how serious this is.

And the Republican voters should beware too. In AZ one Republican candidate already got screwed over in the elections not by Diebold but by fraud.

What happens if a terrorist organization decides to determine the outcome of our elections and get in candidate they either plant or pay off to vote to give them arms, funding, etc? The US funded Osama and Saddam in the past and now it will be that much easier for the terrorists. You want to get Republicans on board with how bad these voting machines are? Paint that very realistic picture and remind them what happened in the Ukraine.

Hahaha....a terrorist organization already HAS determined the outcome of our elections - they are the neocon wing of the Republican party, PNAC, the Nixon holdovers who tried to hijack the country 30 years ago and who have been setting up the final takedown ever since.

And in the Ukraine, other nations and the UN were there to demand a new election. Who will do that for us? Republicans don't see anything beyond their own power. That's why their policies suck so much ass. I don't believe that any Republican who has policy influence will care if electronic machines are hackable.